NASA Conducts Shuttle Astronaut Rescue Drill

By
Todd Halvorson, Florida Today
|
December 3, 2004 04:00pm ET

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A rescue team member and astronaut-suited worker practice landing a slidewire basket during a simulated emergency egress scenario from Launch Pad 39A. The four-hour exercise simulated normal launch countdown operations, with the added challenge of a fictitious event causing an evacuation of the vehicle and launch pad.

Credit: NASA/KSC.

CAPE CANAVERAL -- NASA staged
a dramatic rescue at Kennedy Space Center Wednesday, evacuating seven astronauts
and seven workers from a shuttle launch tower before flying four to area
hospitals in helicopters.

Rescuers riding in armored
personnel carriers raced to Launch Pad 39A, rushed up stairs to the 195-foot
level of the tower and found four workers and two astronauts who appeared to be
injured or incapacitated.

Amid a deluge of water from the
pad's fire control system, the squad cleared the 36-story gantry of all
personnel in a mere 14 minutes.

It was only a training exercise.

But fires, fuel leaks and even
explosions always are a possibility during volatile shuttle launch operations.

NASA officials said the disaster
drill was crucial to keeping teams sharp during the ongoing effort to return
shuttles to flight in the wake of the February 2003 Columbia accident.

"It's just critical that everyone
involved here knows their jobs and knows what to do at a moment's notice if
something were to happen," said NASA astronaut Alan Poindexter.

Chances of such an emergency are
remote. "But if something were to happen, we want to everybody to get off the
pad as quickly and as safely as possible," he said.

Like a Hollywood action film, the
four-hour drill was scripted down to the minute. Here's how the scenario
unfolded:

Seven workers acting as
astronauts were pretending to board a shuttle as engineers in a firing room
three miles away conducted a simulated shuttle launch countdown.

Seven members of a real NASA
"close-out crew" -- the people who help astronauts strap into an orbiter on
launch day - also were on the 195-foot level of the pad, the area where flight
crews climb aboard shuttles. A simulated leak of toxic rocket fuel triggered the
pad's fire extinguisher system at 1:37 p.m. EST, showering the seaside structure
with hundreds of thousands of gallons of water.

Stationed at a staging area more
than a mile away, 11 firefighters and rescue workers then scrambled to the pad.
Three others came from a bunker west of the tower.

The 14 rescuers combined forces
to help six people feigning injuries into launch tower escape baskets.

NASA's twin shuttle launch pads
each are equipped with a so-called slidewire basket system. Located on the
195-foot-level of either tower, the systems each consist of seven baskets, each
of which is capable of carrying four people off the tower.

In a real emergency, the baskets
would zip down a 1,200-foot slidewire to the bunker area near the perimeter of
the launch complex. Top speed: 55 mph.

Arresting nets and drag chains
would bring the baskets to a stop in the bunker area.

No one rode down the slidewires
during the drill. NASA safety officials deemed that an unnecessary risk.

But the rescuers did practice
hauling those acting as if they were injured or incapacitated into the baskets
on the launch tower and then out of another set at the bunker area.

They used dolly-like carts and
flexible backboards to carry the "injured" or "unconscious" first to an
underground bunker and then into three armored personnel carriers.

The tank-like vehicles sped off
to a triage area at a nearby heliport. Four workers were flown to three
hospitals in Brevard, Orange and Volusia counties to cap the simulation.

Poindexter said the exercise
enabled engineers, technicians and rescue personnel to practice emergency
procedures in a realistic environment.

NASA launch controllers talked
with the pad workers and the would-be astronauts over radio communications loops
just as if there were a real emergency.

The rescue workers operated the
armored personnel carriers. They dashed up stairs to the 195-foot level of the
tower wearing bulky protective gear and 60-pound life support backpacks.

And they practiced hauling
injured people through a blinding haze of water spray from the pad's fire
control system.

"It's very noisy. It's hard to
see through the water spray, and it's difficult to get people expeditiously out
of the vehicle in a safe manner," Poindexter said.

Added NASA astronaut Jerry Ross:
"It's just another aspect of what we have to do to get ready to go fly
again."

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